Monkey’s selfie at center of copyright brouhaha

Wikipedia says the public, not the photojournalist, owns the rights to ape's pic.

An English nature photographer is going ape over Wikipedia's refusal to remove pictures of a monkey from the online encyclopedia that he says are being displayed without his permission.

Wikimedia, the operation that runs Wikipedia, says that the public, not photojournalist David Slater, maintains the rights to the works. That's because the black macaca nigra monkey swiped the camera from Slater during a 2011 shoot in Indonesia and snapped tons of pictures, including the selfie and others at issue.

"We received a takedown request from the photographer, claiming that he owned the copyright to the photographs. We didn't agree. So we denied the request," Wikimedia said Wednesday in its transparency report.

The picture is among the thousands the site makes available for free under its Wikimedia Commons, a fact that Slater says is costing him royalties. The picture went viral in 2011 when the media reported on the selfie. "He must have taken hundreds of pictures by the time I got my camera back, but not very many were in focus. He obviously hadn't worked that out yet," Slater toldThe Telegraph in July 2011 as he described the monkey hijacking his gear.

The image has at times been removed from the Wikimedia Commons by various site editors.

"If the monkey took it, it owns copyright, not me—that’s their basic argument. What they don’t realize is that it needs a court to decide that," Slater told the Telegraph Wednesday.

Slater said the picture should not be in the public domain. "They've got no right to say that it's public domain. A monkey pressed the button, but I did all the setting up," he said.

But Wikimedia countered, saying, "To claim copyright, the photographer would have had to make substantial contributions to the final image, and even then, they'd only have copyright for those alterations, not the underlying image. This means that there was no one on whom to bestow copyright, so the image falls into the public domain."

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"If the monkey took it, it owns copyright, not me—that’s their basic argument. What they don’t realize is that it needs a court to decide that," Slater told the Telegraph Wednesday.

Sure, you're exactly correct ... if you take Wikicommons to court and convince a judge. If you're not willing to put up the cash to prove in a court of law that you're the rightful rights holder then stop your belly aching.

Interesting. Without really understanding law, it seems that this would fall into a gray area of our legal system. Do we recognize "agency" in an ape? Does copyright require "agency"?

It's not a grey area in the way you imply. Laws as they stand specifically do not grant agency to anyone but humans. I can't see Wikimedia winning this if he pushes it to the courts. But I'm not surprised of the stance it's in line with how they normally react to a number of things.

Major props to Wikimedia. I just got finished reading the whole Darkchylde/Tumblr debacle. We have to support the companies that stand up for the users' rights. Youtube, Tumblr, et. al, are way too eager to take down content almost instantly should any Tom, Dick or Harry submit a DMCA complaint, legitimate or not.

If the dude really prepared the scene (as in, directed light, framed the shot, did the post processing), then this is clearly his creative product. Who pressed the button doesn't matter. It's common practice to use an assistant as the camera operator, that doesn't mean that the photo belongs to the assistant. From what I understood, though, the monkey took his equipment out of his own volition, so the photographer had little involvement in the process.

I wonder if the ape (according to the article, please correct me if I am wrong), does parties, or weddings? That is one fantastic selfie!

On to the legal side, from what I understand It would have to be public domain or the ape's copyright. The guy cant take credit nor recieve royalties for it. Though then, for this unique case the court could decide otherwise.

I think the question is simple. Does the copyright for a photo belong to the owner of a camera or the one that takes the photo? If I lend my camera to a friend, and he takes a photo, the copyright is his, not mine. Wikimedia is correct.

Of course they do. You can't put a dog in a microwave, for example. The courts in the US have consistently decided that animals do have some basic rights.

Now, whether or not animals have the right to own property, including copyright, that's a completely different question. I suspect it will come down to a court decision.

Just because they're protected from the actions of humans doesn't necessarily mean they have rights in the same sense as humans. We aren't allowed to "mistreat" rivers by pouring waste into it, but it doesn't mean the river itself has rights.

The camera did all the real work, screw the monkey and the photographer..... ?

This seems like a silly line of reasoning. You buy the equipment, potentially travel significant distance, set up the equipment, then sift through hundreds of bad monkey selfies for the good ones. Sounds like the photographer did a lot of the work, despite the fact that the monkey pressed the shutter button.

Of course they do. You can't put a dog in a microwave, for example. The courts in the US have consistently decided that animals do have some basic rights.

depends whether those courts had the power, and decided to, set a precedent with their judgement I guess. I would be interested to see evidence that any country, even the US, considers animals as fundamentally more than property with their own rights AND that fact is formally enshrined in law. Their legal protection is from humans being disallowed to act in a certain way, which is not really conveying a right on the animal (just as it is illegal to burn down someone's house but the house itself has no rights).

So, Wikimedia is claiming that if I were to set up a DLSR on a mount; set the exposure levels, focus, white balance, f-stop, and then dozen other settings; then trick a wild animal into pressing the shutter button by waving a piece of food over it, that I wouldn't own the copyright to that image. Rrrrrriiiight.

So, Wikimedia is claiming that if I were to set up a DLSR on a mount; set the exposure levels, focus, white balance, f-stop, and then dozen other settings; then trick a wild animal into pressing the shutter button by waving a piece of food over it, that I wouldn't own the copyright to that image. Rrrrrriiiight.

Nice strawman, but that's not what they're saying at all. They're saying that since all of that didn't happen, THAT is why the photographer doesn't own the copyright to that image.

So, Wikimedia is claiming that if I were to set up a DLSR on a mount; set the exposure levels, focus, white balance, f-stop, and then dozen other settings; then trick a wild animal into pressing the shutter button by waving a piece of food over it, that I wouldn't own the copyright to that image. Rrrrrriiiight.

No, Wikimedia is saying if you walk away from a camera in a forest and a tree takes a selfie, it doesn't make a copyright violation.

When are we owed a living, and when are we not? Are photographers and songwriters the same?

I dunno. Seems to me that the photographer got a lucky break. Monkey did what photographer didn't want monkey to do and wouldn't have let monkey do if he could have helped it and monkey did something that photographer could possibly profit from. However, some humans think that its okay not to pay the photographer because of the above mentioned lack of intention by the photographer. Seems to me that the photographer probably stands to make some money off the photo. Perhaps, due to its provenance, not as much as he'd hope. Wah.

If the dude really prepared the scene (as in, directed light, framed the shot, did the post processing), then this is clearly his creative product. Who pressed the button doesn't matter. It's common practice to use an assistant as the camera operator, that doesn't mean that the photo belongs to the assistant. From what I understood, though, the monkey took his equipment out of his own volition, so the photographer had little involvement in the process.

I think this is the crux of the issue right here. How much contribution did the camera owner actually have in outcome of the shot?

Even if the monkey does own the copyright, the photographer certainly did post-process the picture, which would transform the picture. He'd own the copyright on the transformed image for sure. Wikimedia is in the wrong here.

If the case is brought on his side of the pond, the photography probably has copyright. Berne Convention recognizes "moral" copyrights that reward effort, even when it isn't really copyrightable subject-matter.

USA doesn't acknowledge moral copyrights. Could go either way based on 'agency.' Never heard of animals getting imputed agency, but...

What setting up? The monkey stole the camera. The monkey alone had control over the framing of the photos, and made every shutter press. It's like saying that an art instructor owns copyright over the work done by the students because the instructor supplied the paint and brushes.

The way I see it, assuming that the monkey took the camera and played around with it freely, this is kind of like finding a precious stone. The photographer "found" the photo, so he has property rights over this specific item. He does not, however, have copy rights over it.